


...hate him....hate him....

by Gwynne



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Spoilers for CVA (but it helps if you've read it)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:53:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwynne/pseuds/Gwynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy being the replacement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...hate him....hate him....

There is a man who hates Captain Lord Ivan Vorpatril, with a deep and enduring, grinding passion. 

He’s never met Ivan Vorpatril, but he bears him a blinding malice.

Every morning this man puts on his uniform and goes to work. And he spends the day hating his predecessor. This man is the new aide-de-camp to Admiral Desplains. 

He’s a proper, military man who earned his position by hard work. Captain Lord Ivan bloody-high-Vor-Vorpatril wasn’t proper military. He was one of those useless idle Voridiots who were nepotismed through the Academy and into their soft jobs. Everyone knew he was the Emperor’s cousin, obviously being kept where he was, out of the way, until needed. 

Everyone said he was lazy, and decorative. He’d chase any female with a pulse, and he set records unlikely to be equalled for traffic infringements. Just a useless High Vor.

So how did he manage to get so much work done? Theodorus is always struggling to keep up with the Admiral, often working long hours into the night just to catch up. That useless Voridiot always had systems to keep the work under control, as Desplains keeps mentioning whenever things build up.

Systems. Stupid systems, silly High-Vor whimsy.

He can’t stand the snakes thing. Admiral Desplains explained that ridiculous system, but Captain Theodorus couldn’t see the point of it all. A numbered system of folders is simple, easy to follow, and … less whimsical. Every now and then Admiral Desplains still makes jokes about the snakes, hopefully, but Theodorus has just about broken him of the habit. It’s not military.

But even worse is when Theodorus puts some item – one of those stupid fierce and deadly snakes – into the non-urgent folder. Then he gets to listen as Desplains murmurs wistfully about Lord I’m-a-useless-High-Vor-Vorpatril’s apparently unerring ability to recognise the seeds of something that’s going to turn horribly and disastrously political. Apparently the man had some sort of unnatural ability to recognise trouble before it happened, and avoid it. 

But today is worse than anything. It’s the final insult. 

Today Admiral Desplains has taken on a second aide, due to the pressure of work. It takes two of them to replace one useless High Vor idiot.

Captain Theodorus can’t understand how, or why. The man was lazy, and had no ambition. Just another High-Vor idiot. So how did he manage to do the job so well that it takes two of them, two proper hard-working officers, to replace him?

And that is why Captain Theodorus hates Ivan Vorpatril.


End file.
